09. Late 60s brainrot
Dad rock, but make it weird.
In college, a dear friend of mine and I hosted a classic rock power hour from 10-11pm on Tuesdays, which very few people listened to. While it’s marginally cooler to listen to “dad rock” in 2024 than it was in 2014, I’ve learned that people immediately shut me down less if I rebrand my interest in the kind of music your dad might have listened to as psych rock or acid folk or proto-punk. Either way, if you know me you know I listen to a lot of weird-of-center 60s and 70s deep cuts and that I’ll talk your ear off about it if you give me a chance. This playlist has twenty tracks in that vein that you maybe? probably? haven’t heard. Let’s get into it:
09.1 Feel Flows, The Beach Boys (1971)
Surf’s Up! is one of those perfect, magic albums. At the time of its release, this track was described as being “tailor made for a stoner’s headphones”.
09.2 Witchi-Tai-To, Brewer & Shipley (1969)
Brewer & Shipley are largely known for the song One Toke Over the Line, which got them banned from the radio by the FCC during the Nixon presidency. It also, famously, was snuck onto the Lawrence Welk show— Welk took it in stride and dubbed it a “modern spiritual”.
Anyway, this track is a well-meaning, but bastardized cover of a Muscogee folksong by Jim Pepper & Everything is Everything, which Brewer & Shipley heard on late night local radio while traveling between gigs. They obviously couldn’t just genius the lyrics, so they had to make their best guess— apparently they nailed the Muscogee lyrics, but the English stanzas are way off. By 2024 standards this is all culturally questionable, but the track is still weird and gorgeous and catchy and I love it despite its flaws.
09.3 Red Lady, Phil Cordell (1970)
Phil Cordell was never very popular which is a shame because his music is really lovely. This song sounds like a summer day. My favorite comment from a Reddit post recommending this track:
09.4 I Don’t Want to Die in Georgia, Brewer & Shipley (1970)
Did I mention I own their entire discography on vinyl?
09.5 The Way I Feel, Gordon Lightfoot (1967)
If you’re like me (midwestern, white, lame) you know Gordon Lightfoot for The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. This track is the exact opposite of that one— it’s really wandering and lush and abstract and gorgeous.
09.6 Blues, Terry Callier (late 60s)
This was a later release of a track originally recorded by Terry Callier during his time with Cadet Records. I really love Terry Callier and I don’t think he gets enough recognition. He and Curtis Mayfield were neighbors growing up in Cabrini-Green, and I’d say it would have been incredible to live on that block if it hadn’t been, you know, Cabrini-Green.
09.7 Daddy Rollin’ (In Your Arms), Dion (1968)
I don’t care for 98% of Dion DiMucci’s discography but I love this song. It’s nasty and feels super dark and kind of foreboding in a way I really like.
09.8 I’m Alive, Tommy James & The Shondells (1968)
Similarly, this song is gritty and feels like it was recorded by a bunch of shithead kids in their garage. A song is instantly good for me if it can pull off one or more of the artists absolutely screaming in the background mid-recording.
09.9 Trouble Every Day, The Mothers of Invention (1966)
Before his solo career, Frank Zappa was the lead guitarist for The Mothers of Invention from 1965 to 1970 when he was assaulted by an audience member while performing in London.
Anyway, this song is largely about the Watts Riots but also about the political climate of the United States in 1966, which was marked deeply by racial violence, police brutality, and widespread objection to the Vietnam War. Nothing changes except nothing changes.
09.10 Outcast, The Animals (1966)
Its the horrible recording quality for me (affectionate).
09.11 Feel Too Good, The Move (1970)
The Move later morphed into Electric Light Orchestra, which you can really hear in this track, I think. You may know this track from the Boogie Nights soundtrack, which is unfortunately incredible despite the complex and many thoughts I have about Paul Thomas Anderson re: Fiona Apple.
09.12 Superlungs My Supergirl, Terry Reid (1969)
This is a cover of the Donovan original, and it’s objectively better. I’m a Terry Reid superfan— this guy is purportedly living paycheck to paycheck despite having had about a billion baffling near-misses with superstardom. It’s crazy. His first band, The Jaywalkers, opened regularly for the Rolling Stones in the mid-60s, just before the Stones really hit their stride. After the Yardbirds broke up, Jimmy Page was really gunning for him to be the lead singer of the group that would later become Led Zeppelin— he told Page that he’d only consider it if Page was willing to personally call Keith Richards and tell him why The Jaywalkers couldn’t open for The Rolling Stones’ upcoming US tour. Instead, Reid told Jimmy Page that he should consider checking out this new guy on the scene he’d just met, Robert Plant, and also this drummer he knew, Jon Bonham. He also turned down an offer for lead vocalist for Deep Purple.
Jimmy Page has basically admitted that especially in the early days of Led Zeppelin, he was mimicking Terry Reid. Aretha Franklin saw Reid perform in 1969 and said in an interview, “There are only three things happening in England: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Terry Reid.” Mick Jagger had him play his wedding. After their exile, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso slept on the floor in his livingroom. He was so fucking connected, it just seems improbable that he was never widely successful.
09.13 I’m a Man, The Spencer Davis Group (1967)
Welcome to the organ portion of the playlist! I hope you like it here.
09.14 Queen St. Gang, Arzachel (1968)
This was a one-off album recorded and mixed in a single day by a group who had never recorded before— they only cut a few hundred copies and fucked off to who knows where. Eventually those records became incredibly valuable with collectors, and ended up pretty widely bootlegged before the album was re-released in 2012. If you like five-minute low-fi proto-prog rock organ jams, then this one is for you and also definitely for me.
09.15 The Sunshine of Your Love, The Rotary Connection (1969)
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, but there’s really nothing I love more than a dynamite cover; for me it’s this really beautiful expression of creative play. The best covers really depart from the original and this is one of those— it’s got this really orchestral, almost cinematic arrangement that is apparently, in fact, actually the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It’s like Cream scores a Bond film.
09.16 Canyon Woman, St. John Green (1968)
There’s just people moaning and groaning and playing off-beat percussion in the background of this track, it’s incredible. This group was never popular, which won’t surprise you— this was their only album before completely dropping off the face of the earth. Their producer was interviewed about it ahead of the 2001 re-release, and this quote about the lead singer leaves me with more questions than answers:
"In between sets he threw up blood on a cot. He lay on the cot and he puked blood. He had bad lungs and he chain-smoked. Then he would go up on stage and give this performance and the all the groupies were madly in love with him, and then he’d go back to the cot and puke more blood....He was tragic and near death in the band, and as soon as the band stopped he got healthy and stopped smoking, I guess. Ed Bissot. I mean, what a genius. This fucking guy was Jim Morrison and Leon Russell... He had the stage presence of Morrison and a young Leon. The band played as tight as Vanilla Fudge, minus the fucking bubblegum. What a band! And dripping with darkness. Every heroin addict and gun dealer and radical black person from Venice to Malibu and Hollywood would all come to prowl and just worship this guy."
09.17 Life Live, Terry Reid (1973)
This album is one of my all-time favorites, and you should listen to it! Terry needs those residuals!
09.18 Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave, Dave Mason (1970)
One of these days I’m going to find a splatter copy of Alone Together out in the wild.
09.19 Brain, The Action (1967)
Nobody asked, but apparently this is Phil Collins’ favorite band.
09.20 Glad and Sorry - Rehearsal, Faces (1970)
If you know me you know I really like Rod Stewart, and only semi-ironically— I just think he’s a funny little old man. He collects model trains! He’s starting unprompted beef with Ed Sheeran in our year of the lord 2024! He’s thee original mullet! Anyway, he was also an integral member of Faces, and Glad and Sorry is the B-side single from one of my favorite albums of all time, Oh La La. It’s already a really sweet song, but this unmixed cut is even better. I’m really obsessed with that cough at the beginning. Music is the best when there’s humans making it, you know?
Anyway, happy friday, weirdos. I hope you’re doing good out there. Love ya.
xoxo em